Swimmer's Daily

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    The first ever European Games begin tomorrow in Azerbaijan. Watch them live on YouTube. https://goo.gl/DeX1yW #Baku2015

    Posted by YouTube on Thursday, June 11, 2015

  • The European Games kicks off in Baku, capital of Azerbaijan, on Friday. It’s the first Olympic-style sporting festival for the continent – but a hashtag first used by organisers and originally meant to celebrate the games has been turned on its head by human rights campaigners.

    #Baku2015 has been tweeted nearly 100,000 times in the last month. It was initially used back in 2012 after the European Olympic Committees launched the new tournament and named Baku as the first host city.

    But in recent days, amidst athlete interviews and pictures of Baku’s new stadium, a significant number of the most repeated messages are from activists and groups such as Human Rights Watch, PEN and Amnesty International. They’re using the tag to detail something very different: the arrests of journalists and the arbitrary detention of activists.

    Read BBC

    Photo by Kudosmedia

  • When adventurer Ben Hooper was five, he drowned in a Belgian swimming pool. This experience alone may excusably put off many from ever going near water again.

    But the father of one from Cheltenham is one of the few, rather than the many.

    The unassuming former police officer, 36, went to the entirely opposite end of the spectrum.

    Instead of shying away from water, he is going to attempt to swim 2,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.

    Read Gloucestershire Echo

    https://youtu.be/1y50j5AwgD0

  • The sports minister Tracey Crouch has promised to deliver a new strategy for sport “as a matter of urgency” following a decline in participation.

    New figures published by Sport England have shown that the number of people playing sport has fallen, with swimming the most badly affected.

    Swimming is the country’s most popular sport with more than 2.5m people taking part weekly, but 144,200 fewer have taken to the pool in the last six months and 390,700 in the last year.

    Overall the statistics, which cover the period from October 2014 to March 2015, show that 15.5m people participated in some kind of sport once a week, every week – a figure 222,000 fewer than six months ago.

    Read The Guardian

    Photo by Katelyn Fay

  • In the Athletes Village in Baku athletes from Russia and Ukraine had a fight, reports our source in the Athletes Village of the European Games.

    According to the information, there was a verbal sparring between a group of Russian and Ukrainian athletes.

    Athletes could not hold back emotions and met in melee. Staff of the Olympic Village separated the fighters.

    Read Azeri Daily

    Photo by Kudosmedia

  • Three 15-year-old Austrian synchronised swimmers were hurt in a collision with a bus while walking in the athletes’ village at the European Games in Baku.

    The Austrian Olympic Committee (AOC) said Vanessa Sahinovic was “severely injured” and would be flown to Vienna for further treatment.

    Luna Pajer will also be flown back to the Austrian capital after suffering injuries to her arms.

    Verena Breit bruised her right thigh and has returned to the village.

    The AOC said the collision happened at 08:30 local time on Thursday, when the athletes were walking on the pavement in the Olympic village.

    AOC chief medical officer Dr Alfred Engel said Sahinovic had suffered a polytrauma and multiple fractures.

    He added Payer’s arm injuries “need further medical clarification”.

    Read BBC

    There is a video here on YouTube that seems to be from the incident. Warning, very graphic !

    https://youtu.be/Koap1jDCw5s

    Photo by Kudosmedia

  • Waterproof Jacksonville is expanding it’s reach once again this year in order to teach more kids to swim and be safe in the water.

  • With two children lost in one day from drowning. We learned one of them was a 7-year-old child on the autism spectrum.

  • He’s known as the “Pinoy Aquaman” and now this Filipino triathlete has taken on a new challenge — the Great Chesapeake Bay Swim. Don Tagala tells us about the latest adventure of Ingemar Macarine.